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Greg began planning another perfect Spring Break escape months in advance. Not only did he check the Carnival web site daily looking for that great deal, he also found a great Carnival customer service representative with whom to work. Finding an extra ordinarily cheap deal, the representative called Greg to book the room. It ended up that a room had been mismarked, so we landed a great deal for a great price. Greg had secured a penthouse suite at half the cost. Before Susan knew it, Greg had booked the cruise.

Excited to fly into San Juan and set sail from there, this cruise would take us much further south than we had ever been. Carnival confirmed that flying from Arizona would require an overnight stay in San Juan. This was even better as we looked forward to a fun evening in Puerto Rico and finally getting to visit the famous Fort El Morro. Greg knew he could be one of the first ones on the ship with such convenient travel arrangements.

When the tickets came, to our dismay Carnival had managed to find a flight the same day we set sail. Even worse, Greg was shocked to see that he wouldn't be able to get on the ship until 9:00 at night, just one hour before the ship set sail.

When we called to express concern about our hurried travel arrangements, once again, Carnival came through for us. They bent over backwards to accommodate Greg's wishes to get on the ship early. Though we were not able to get a flight into San Juan the previous day, we were able to fly during the night and arrive early the day of sailing. The travel information did not come until 24 hours before we had to leave Safford. The new flight plans would put us into San Juan at 11:00 a.m., a full 9 hours earlier. We left from Safford at 6:00 Saturday evening, left Phoenix at 11:00 p.m., arrived in Philadelphia four hours later at 5:00 a.m., and then left Philly at 8:00 a.m. arriving at San Juan at 11:00 a.m. Pleased to be eating his hamburger on the Lido deck, Greg got on the ship early, even though it took us close to 18 hours of travel time.
Flying at night proved to be a refreshing change as Preston and Brooklyn both slept the entire way to Philadelphia With leisure time on their hands, Susan and Greg began playing with their Palm Pilots. It wasn't long before they were "beaming" love notes back and forth across the aisle. Though Greg had been using him Palm for about two years, it was more of a tech toy for him until Susan got hers. After she learned all of the "cool" things the Palms could do, Greg's interest piqued as she was beaming programs, addresses and notes to him throughout the flight. Of course it never occurred to either of them that anyone else on the plane with a Palm could probably receive the same "beamed" notes Susan was sending to Greg!!!

After a quick nap in Philly, we boarded our next flight in style being bumped up to first class, our first experience in such luxury. Once we figured out the multi-directional seats, we were served a gourmet breakfast. Brooklyn tried yogurt for the first time and became a great fan. After breakfast, it was time for some entertainment. Our personal monitors gave each of us our own choice of movies. Preston was ecstatic to find Titans, one of his all-time favorite movies. Brooklyn was just as excited by her choice, Chicken Run.

There was no doubt our trip was dawning great luck when Greg looked out the window and spotted a cloud shaped like an elephant with its trunk up. Grabbing the camera, he knew Susan would love this picture forever.

The port entry to San Juan has been voted one of the prettiest by ship captains world-wide. Flying into San Juan proved just as exhilarating. Greg was able to get great shots of Fort El Morro.

A few seconds later we found ourselves over the Carnival Destiny with a great view for postcard-perfect pictures. There she was, the Carnival Destiny. This would be our third time on this ship. Our first time on the Destiny was March of 1997 when Preston got the chicken pox. The second time was when we were able to get back onto the ship after the chicken pox episode.

This third trip on the Destiny and the eighth trip with Carnival was already turning out to be pretty good.

The San Juan airport was a bit surprising It was jam-packed with what seemed to be thousands of people. There was very little seating, so the open floors were covered with people sprawled out surrounded by bags and luggage. Looking exhausted, sunburned, and ready to be home, we realized these were the passengers from the previous week cruise ships and knew this was what we would look like seven days from then.

After retrieving our luggage, we were glad to see Carnival was on site to check cruise passengers in there at the airport. In talking to a Carnival representative, Greg was disappointed to find out they didn't have express check in for their penthouse suite customers. We were use to skipping all of the long lines on previous sailings when we had the suite. After entering the back of a very long line, a second Carnival representative came and escorted Greg to a separate table where we were checked in immediately.

At curb side our luggage was placed into a large moving truck and we were whisked away by bus for a quick ten minute trip to the pier.


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 Once at the pier, we were glad to see they still had the traditional sailing portrait with which we have started each of our cruises. Check out our other professional ship port of call photos by clicking here.
Once on board, the view from our balcony was perfect. We had a great view of the famous Fort El Morro, which Preston had been dieing to visit. The last time we were in San Juan, the fort closed just minutes before we got there. Greg knew that arriving at the ship early, we would have plenty of time to visit the fort. Thus, Greg took time to have a hamburger on the Lido deck, another important tradition.



Of course, the first business any time we get off the ship is always calling home to check on things. After making sure all was well, we stopped for a few pictures then started that long, uphill climb to the fort.

As luck would have it, once again we were denied entrance into the acclaimed fort. They happen to close early that day and we were once again five minutes too late. Greg's theory had failed but Preston's disappointed soon disappeared as we hung out on the grounds around the fort and enjoyed the ocean scenes.

Although leaving San Juan was not as glamorous as leaving Miami, it was still exciting to see the captain take the Destiny from the dock and inch it out to sea without hitting anything.

It was a clear night with the full moon in the background. Having our own verandah was exciting as we watched San Juan disappear into the background knowing that in ten hours we would be arriving in St. Thomas.

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